This post is dedicated to bee taxonomists and to a newly discovered bee. If you don't know what a bee taxonomist is, it is someone who can distinguish among all the different kinds of bees out there. How many bees are out there? Most people can name at least two kinds of bees - honey bees and bumble bees - but these are only the "common" names for two groups of species. The number of species that those two common names contain is only a fraction of the more than 20,000 species that have been described worldwide. Some examples of other common names for groups of bee species are: digger bees, long-horned bees, mason bees, leaf-cutter bees, carpenter bees, and even sweat bees (more on that in a minute). Here in Michigan we can claim nearly 400 different bee species, with 21 species of bumble bees alone!

What is remarkable about bees is that they seem to be everywhere that people are. Today in the New York Times, a report has just come out that a new bee species has been discovered in New York City by two taxonomists: John Ascher (pictured left) at the American Museum of Natural History (who collected the bee) and Jason Gibbs at Cornell University (who is a specialist on the kind of bee that John collected and who helped determine that it isn't something that had been seen before). They used a DNA test to confirm that it is in fact a new species and then they charmingly named it: Lasioglossum gotham.

New bee in Gotham - photo by Jason Gibbs

It is a kind of sweat bee, so-called because they will use humans as their personal salt-lick when we sweat. The picture above makes the bee appear to be huge, but in reality it is probably about 3/8ths of an inch in length, or about half the size of a honey bee. Sweat bees are solitary bees, with every female fending for herself in terms of nest building and foraging to provide food for offspring. They dig tunnel-like nests in soil, but because they are solitary bees (that is, they do not form colonies) these are not aggressive bees, and they have a very mild sting.

Why should we care that there are so many different kinds of bees? In other words, why do we need taxonomists? Bee diversity has been shown to be correlated with flowering plant diversity and can be used as an indicator of how suitable a particular area is for sustaining seed and fruit-bearing plants that are insect-pollinated (without the addition of a managed pollinator like honey bees). If you love your morning cup of coffee, if you love fresh strawberries on your waffles, if you enjoy the comfort of a cotton shirt, if you love apple or cherry pie, if you love cheese and cream from animals that forage on pastureland containing alfalfa, then bee diversity should be very important to you. All of these "other bees", these non-honey-bees, are insurance against the potential loss of honey bees in terms of pollination. Some of these "other bees" are actually better pollinators of particular crops (e.g. blueberries, tomatoes, squash) or help honey bees increase their pollination efficiency (e.g. sunflowers).

When you sip your coffee and eat your fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds today, think about all of the tiny helpers that brought you these pleasures in life - thank them and the taxonomists for continuing to discover more of them.